Create Some Dazzling Particle Effects Using ICE in Softimage

Using the graphically based, plug and play programming of ICE, you will create and learn to control the motion of electron clouds around a nucleus. This tutorial covers constraints to motion, how to do vector math, particle trails, creating and reusing ICE compounds, and even some basic ICE particle rendering. If you don’t already, you will come to love the flexibility and power that ICE provides to your simulations.

Using Autodesk Softimage 7.5 (formerly XSI), we will be creating particle emissions from polygon meshes which we will use as our orbital electrons. We will set up a constraining “force” to keep the motion of the particles on the orbital geometry, and then vary the motion using another pseudo force which will drive the particles up and down with a sine function. Lastly, we will create compounds of each of our pseudo forces, and do a weighted average of them to create the final motion effect.

Once the particle motion has been set up, we will create some particle trails using a new point cloud. We will set up a different particle for this, and we will set and modify parameters of the particle including shape, size, and color during its life. We will also set up a basic material for these particles that uses the age of the particle as a controller for the color.